


The End

by LetThereBeDestiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, End of the World, Episode: s05e04 The End, Light Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7616950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetThereBeDestiel/pseuds/LetThereBeDestiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Look,” Cas sighs. “Dean and I – it’s too late for us. So do yourself a favor and if you ever go back, don’t give up on him.” Seemingly, he says the words offhandedly, glancing sideways at Dean, but his eyes give it away – this conversation has hit closer to home than he’d like it to. He grabs his pills and steps away to his bed, leaving Dean surrounded by the darkness and his last sentence.<br/>“You’re all he’s got.”<br/>~<br/>Lucifer has risen. Dean is zapped by Zachariah to 2014 as an attempt to convince him to say yes to Michael, but instead of learning the lesson Zach wants him to learn, he finds Dean and Cas from the future, fighting for and against their feelings.<br/>It's too late for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdlexia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdlexia/gifts).



> For Lin,  
> I tried my best to write something you'd enjoy. Sorry if that didn't work. I hope you like this. I love you.

**Note:** I'd recommend watching the episode before you're reading this because some of this fic is just copy-pasting the transcript, and it'll be easier to understand if you remember what happened. If you can't\don't wanna watch the ep again, just go with me and trust that except for the destiel parts, I made this as accurate according to the canon plotline as I could. 

* * *

* * *

 

 

“We got a better chance of dodging Lucifer and Michael and this whole damn thing, if we just go our own ways.”

“Dean, don’t do this…”

“Bye, Sam.”

*

The nightstand clock is smashed. He’s lying on the springs of the hotel bed; the mattress is gone.

He gets up and looks around; the entire room is trashed.

He looks out the window; so is the city.

 *

“Little girl? Little girl?”

Blood. Screams. A writing on the wall. _CROATOAN._

He runs.

Gunshots. _Click_.

**_Do you love me?_ **

**_I can really move._ **

**_Do you love me?_ **

A row of bullets pierces the wall.

*

A sign on the fence reads:  _August 1 st, 2014._

*

 “Three days, Dean. Three days to see where this course of action takes you.

This is what happens to the world if you continue to say no to Michael. Have a little look-see.”

*

“Bobby? Bobby, I’m coming in!”

The door creaks. The place is thoroughly trashed, and from the spiderwebs and dust, no one has been around in a while.

_“Oh, no.”_

*

“Oh, no, Baby, what did they do to you?”

A dark figure.

A fist smashes against the back of his head.

*

“What about Sam?”

“Heavyweight showdown in Detroit. From what I understand, Sam didn’t make it.”

*

“Hey, Chuck, is… Cas still here?”

“Yeah, I don’t think Cas is going anywhere.”

*

The sound of complete silence is nerve-racking in the big room.

The constant buzz of electricity is gone. There are no crickets, no animals to smooth the dead quiet of the night.

All he’s left with are his thoughts and a hard, cold floor, with a colder man to share them with.

He’s been everywhere in the damn camp, seen whoever was left to see; the angel he knew was long gone, replaced with a stoned lunatic. He himself was a cold hearted torturing bastard who would sacrifice his friends in a heartbeat.

Himself, in fact, was probably about to do just that, with his crazy plan to find Lucifer – Sam – and shoot him with the Colt, four and a half years after Dean had originally planned.

Bulletproof strategy.

He sighs and looks around the room.

“A lot has changed around here,” he points out, and his eyes land on the Other Dean’s right hand. The other Dean follows his stare and raises his hands defensively. “What?”

“The ring,” Dean says sharply, lifting his own right hand. “Mary’s ring.”

“Like you said,” The Dean sighs and leans his bottom against a table. “Things’ve changed.”

Dean’s eyebrows rise, his tone bluntly suspicious when he says, “Where is it?”

His future self shrugs, glaring into his eyes. “What’s the point?”

“What the hell happened to you?” Dean snaps, astounded. The other man only shrugs, and Dean recalls Cas answering his very same question earlier.

_Life._

He mutters to himself angrily – how could that dick let Cas turn out the way he has? If Cas would have become human on his watch, Dean would have never turned his back on him like that.

…Or would he?

Either way, he decides, trying to distract himself – something odd is going on here, something he can’t quite put his finger on. Dean and Cas from the future seemed equally apathetic to one another when Dean had spoken to them earlier, but talking about each other, they both had this vibe – not quite like they were hiding something, but more like they had some sort of… History. It was…

_You sayin’ my plan is reckless?_

_If you don’t like ‘reckless’, I could use ‘insouciant’, maybe._

_Are you coming?_

_Of course._

…The way they’d teased each other. Or maybe…

_Hey, Chuck, is… Cas still here?_

_I don’t think Cas is going anywhere._

Cas’ loyalty, despite how Dean treated him.

He waits until bedtime, when Dick Dean hands him a sleeping bag and sprawls on his old, lumpy mattress by the door. Fifteen minutes later he can hear his future self’s quiet snores fill the silence of the room, but knowing his enemy, he waits an hour more just to be sure. Then he stands up silently and takes one step toward the door. The floor doesn’t creak.

“Don’t even think about it,” a voice rises from the silence. He hears the gun being cocked before he sees the black patch of color, the only object in the room darker than darkness itself.

“Relax, I’m just goin’ to see Cas.” His palms rise defensively.

“Why?” The older man lifts a suspicious eyebrow without lowering his gun, and Dean realizes how paying an old friend an unwelcome visit in the middle of the night might seem odd.

His throat dries. “Just-“ he stammers. “Just wanna check up on him. Y’know- this hasn’t been easy for him,” he manages eventually.

“Whatever,” the older Dean mutters. The gun returns silently to its place under the pillow which is smashed by the man’s head a moment later.

“You need to be easier on him,” Dean says as he skips above the other Dean’s torso. But as he opens the door and steps into the night, he ponders at the irony in his words – in their own universe, the one fragile and whole and impeccable compared to this one – he was never easy on Cas. So why would this Dean be any different with his own Cas?

 *

“We need to talk.”

Cas blinks at him indifferently. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

“I didn’t want him to be involved,” he gestures toward Dean’s cabin with his head. “Yet.”

“I see.” Cas folds is arms and waits.

“What’s going on between you two?” Dean asks, examining the other man’s expression closely.

Cas purses his lips. “How do you mean?”

Dean squints, considering answering, but when Cas’ lips twist almost unnoticeably he decides to wait.

“We might be…” His lips twist into a scowl now. “Screwing around.”

Dean’s jaw tumbles, taken aback.

“What,” Cas’ voice is dripping with sarcasm, one eyebrow rising. “You didn’t see that coming?”

“I…” Dean’s mouth close, then open again. “…Screwing around?”

He’s imagined him and Cas dozens of times before – kissing, talking, fighting, fucking – but it was never just screwing around. It was always… Loving.

“In a way,” Cas weighs his words. “You could say we love each other.”

“I know that,” Dean says too quickly. Cas frowns.

“Then why are you so surprised?”

Dean’s teeth grit against one another trying to work through his feelings.

“Love…” He repeats, “is not just screwing around.”

Cas shrugs. “I gave up trying to understand love a long time ago,” he says simply.

“Does _he_ share these views?” It feels unsettling to call another man his own name, especially when he technically speaks of himself, and he tries to avoid it.

“Dean is more… tragically romantic, you can say, with his ideas.” Cas’ knuckles whiten in the dim moonlight when he opens a miniature bottle and flings a couple of pills into his mouth.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re welcome to ask him.” He swallows down his pills with a sip of water and closes the bottle sloppily. He stands up – an obvious invitation for Dean to leave, but Dean stays in his chair stubbornly.

“What about Jane?”

“What?”

“Jane’s cabin. I hear that’s where your fuck-buddy spends his occasional nights.”  

Cas lifts his arms in the air half-heartedly. “Do you see any Jane around?”

Dean’s eyebrows furrow, puzzled for a moment.

“So, what, is it like your code name?” He doesn’t get an answer for that.

“Look,” Cas sighs. “Dean and I – it’s too late for us. So do yourself a favor and if you ever go back, don’t give up on him.” Seemingly, he says the words offhandedly, glancing sideways at Dean, but his eyes give it away – this conversation has hit closer to home than he’d like it to. He grabs his pills and steps away to his bed, leaving Dean surrounded by the darkness and his last sentence.

“You’re all he’s got.”

 

“Screwing around?” Dean’s hand lifts to touch his chin pensively.

“His words,” the younger man shrugs, watching him carefully.

He hates doing it like that, going behind their backs, talking in pieces, but his time is running out and he needs to find out what’s going on before Dean’s big plan is executed.

“Well, yeah,” the other Dean says. His eyebrows furrow as though something is bothering him. “Our relationship is… almost exclusively physical.”

Dean examines his expression carefully. “There’s more,” he determines slowly.

The older Dean lifts one shoulder into a shrug. “We used to love each other. It used to be blushin’ and crushin’, like in the movies. You would know; you’re living it.” His lips twist with thick bitterness, envious at everything his younger self had and gave up on – his planet, his brother, his love; his sanity, maybe.

Dean squints at him, searching behind his bitter mask. “No, there’s something else,” he presses. He knows himself too well. The thought of him trying to hide something from his own self agitates him.

_Spill it out, Winchester._

“What do you want me to say?” The man snaps, his fingers curling into fists. “That I still love him like I used to? That I’m too afraid to dare to love him now? This is war, Dean. You can’t love during war. It’d be idiotic to open up to someone who might die tomorrow. I’m not willing to take that risk.” His eyes sear with resentment, his upper lip quivering for one tenth of a second.

“Did you get your damn answer?” He doesn’t wait for Dean to respond and turns away, grabbing a bottle of whiskey and pouring a generous amount into one cup.

Dean gulps, taken aback. He waits silently for the man to finish his drink and refill his glass before he opens his mouth.

“So many times I almost told him, you know.” He almost whispers the words. “That night that was supposed to be our last… Later, after we left the strip club… I always chickened out last minute, scared he wouldn't feel the same way.”

The older man snorts and takes a sip of his drink. “If you chicken out enough times, eventually you’ll have no choice but to be brave,” he mumbles. “Scary things don’t go away, they pile up.”

He leaves the kitchen to start the preparations for the trip, but Dean stays in his seat for a while longer. Now that he knows how Cas feels about him and exactly what happens if neither of them speak up, he wonders whether he’ll have the courage to talk to him when – if – he gets back to his own timeline.

He’ll have to speak to Sam, of course. When he’d told Sam they’re better off apart he didn’t imagine that five years later he would have been as good as dead, would have given in to Lucifer after not seeing Dean ever again. Dean feels a sudden surge of impulse to see his kid brother again. That’s the first thing he’ll do when he gets back, he decides, and stands up.

 

* * *

 

 

All was well, eventually.

It was the end of the world. Lucifer won, taking both his brother and his future self away, and all hell broke loose. Dean was zapped back to his timeline, confronted Zach and disappeared again, appearing at the side of a highway.

“That’s pretty nice timing, Cas.”

Beside him, Castiel ducks his head.

“We had an appointment.”

Dean looks at him, his eyes gulping appreciatively Cas’ tall figure, his sober eyes, his hair. He raises a hand to rest on Cas’ shoulder.

“Don’t ever change.” A heartfelt smile slips from the back of his mind onto his lips.

“How did Zachariah find you?”

“Long story. Let’s just stay away from Jehovah’s Witnesses from now on, okay?”

He pulls out his phone, turning away, but then halts in place.

“Hey, Cas?” He asks quietly. A part of him hopes that Castiel has managed to disappear by now, like he usually would, but when he turns around the angel is still there. He gulps.

“Do you feel like grabbing a burger?”

“I- that’d be pointless,” Cas notes. “I can’t taste human food.”

“C’mon, I need to talk to you ‘bout something.”

In his mind, he notes to himself to call Sam as soon as he’s finished mumbling his confession to Cas. He smiles softly.

Beside him, watching his features lighten, Cas smiles back.


End file.
